Maseches Terumos, chapter ten, mishnah 1. This chapter deals with mixtures of Terumah and chullin, and examines whether the chullin remains permitted for a non-kohen to eat. Terumah, with respect to a non-kohen, is an outright prohibition, so what we have before us are situations of a prohibited item and a permitted item mixed together - permitted food and forbidden food that have become intermingled. The question is whether the chullin that had been permitted to a non-kohen remains permitted, or whether it has now become forbidden to him. For this reason the principles laid down in this chapter reach far beyond the laws of Terumah alone, and they have implications for the laws of kashrus in general.
The first mishnah opens specifically with the exception to the rule. This is the way of the Mishnah in many places: when it opens a new topic it first seeks to establish the boundaries - where the line runs, and when the rules no longer apply.
The principle of "ta'am ke'ikar":
The principle is that in a mixture of chullin and Terumah, even if the Terumah has been removed, as long as a trace of its taste remains in the chullin - that is, the Terumah imparted taste to it - the perceptible taste testifies that actual particles of the forbidden item are still present and mixed in there, and they render the chullin forbidden. This is the principle of "ta'am ke'ikar": if the taste is present, it is as though the thing itself - the ikar, the source of the prohibition, and in our case the Terumah - is present in the mixture.
In practice: if after the piece of Terumah is removed its taste is still discernible, the mixture of chullin becomes forbidden to a non-kohen. It becomes a medumma mixture, a mixture of Terumah and chullin together, and it must be given or sold to a kohen. And if no taste is discernible in the chullin after the Terumah has been removed, or after it became mixed in, the chullin, or the mixture that was created, remains permitted, and a non-kohen may eat it.
Min bemino and min beshe'eino mino:
Let us first clarify a point in order to avoid confusion. Until now in this masechta we have dealt with other mixtures of Terumah and chullin, and there the rule was established that one hundred times as much chullin as Terumah is required in order for the mixture to be permitted. Admittedly, as was mentioned, the Tannaim disagreed about this, and the halachah follows Rabbi Yehoshua, that more than ninety-nine times as much chullin as Terumah suffices, but for the sake of simplicity we always use the expression "one hundred times," following the view of Rabbi Eliezer. This requirement of one hundred times applies only to min bemino.
Min bemino: a mixture of two things that are exactly the same kind of food, and only their halachic status differs. For example, wheat of Terumah that fell into wheat of chullin - it is all wheat mixed together. Here one hundred times is required.
Min beshe'eino mino: one kind that became mixed with a different kind. For example, a wheat dish cooking in a pot into which a little barley fell. Here the determination is not made by one hundred to one, but by the imparting of taste: is a transfer of taste discernible in the permitted food, in the mixture that was created, or in the permitted food that remains after the forbidden item, meaning the Terumah, was removed.
How is the imparting of taste determined?
The concept of "imparting taste" teaches that the way we would ideally determine whether a trace of the forbidden item remains within the permitted food is simply by tasting: if traces of the forbidden item can be tasted, the mixture is forbidden.
Generally, in mixtures of foods, such as cholent cooking on the stove into which a little milk fell, we apply the well-known rule of sixty times: if the cholent contains sixty times as much as the milk, the milk is nullified. But fundamentally the actual measurement was by taste - to taste the cholent and check whether the taste of milk is discernible in it.
The Gemara presents this in the form of a "kefeila armai" - an Aramean cook, meaning a cook who is not Jewish, who would do the tasting. From here there are two lessons:
A non-Jew is specifically required, since if the mixture is forbidden a Jew cannot taste it.
A cook is specifically required. It is not enough for an ordinary person to taste and be asked, "Do you taste milk here?" Rather, we need a trained palate, someone who can genuinely be relied upon to determine whether any trace of the forbidden substance remains - in the case of meat and milk, a trace of the milk in the cholent.
Chazal understood that under ordinary circumstances a non-Jewish cook is not readily available to taste the food, and even if one is found, there is a separate problem of trusting what he says, since generally he cannot be relied upon when he knows what is at stake. His credibility depends on his being mesiach lefi tumo, saying things innocently without knowing the halachic consequences of his determination, and that is clearly impractical. Since non-Jewish cooks speaking innocently are not conveniently available to taste the cholent every Friday afternoon that a bit of milk spills into it, Chazal established the fixed measure of one part in sixty, based on their determination of when taste is generally noticeable in ordinary foods.
But in our mishnayos the situation is different, and this is fascinating: in mixtures of Terumah and chullin, which are likewise a mixture of forbidden and permitted, a kohen is generally readily available. Kohanim are Jews, there is no reason not to trust them, and they are indeed believed. Therefore, when we need to determine whether the taste of the Terumah is discernible in the chullin, we do not necessarily follow the measure of sixty; instead we ask a kohen to taste the food and determine whether any trace of the taste imparted by the Terumah to the chullin is discernible in it.
The case in the Mishnah - an onion that fell into lentils:
The first case, as noted, is the exception: a whole onion that was never cut, whose sharp flavor is locked inside it and does not come out, which fell into a bowl of cooked lentils from which the liquid had been strained. For simplicity we will follow the view of the Rishonim, among them the Rosh, that the lentils are cold. This, then, is a scenario in which there is no likelihood at all that taste passed, and we even say that it did not pass: the onion is not cut, and the lentils have already been cooked and their liquid drained off, so they are saturated and bland, and there is no real transfer of taste in them.
In practice it makes no difference whether the onion is the Terumah and the lentils are chullin, or the reverse - the same rules apply, since either way we have before us a mixture of forbidden and permitted that have joined together, and the concern is whether the forbidden item, that is the Terumah, imparted taste to the permitted item, that is the chullin. But for simplicity we will follow the primary understanding of the Mishnah: an onion of Terumah that fell into a bowl of chullin lentils that were cooked, strained, and are no longer hot. In this case it is enough to remove the onion and all is in order, since no taste was transferred.
The words of the Mishnah:
"Batzal shenatno besoch adashim" - an onion of Terumah that ultimately fell into the bowl of lentils.
"Im shalem - mutar" - as long as the onion is whole and was not cut, the lentils, which are chullin, are permitted to a non-kohen, since we do not assume that taste passed from an uncut onion into lentils that were already cooked and strained and no longer absorb taste.
"Ve'im chatcho - benosen ta'am" - once the onion has been cut it is open, and it is well known that the flavoring power of opened onions is extremely strong. Therefore the question of whether the lentils are permitted depends on the transfer of taste: did the onion impart its taste to the lentils or not? The way to determine this is to bring a kohen to taste the lentils. If he tastes onion, the lentils are forbidden to a non-kohen, and they must be sold or given to a kohen. If he does not taste the onion in the lentils, the lentils remain permitted to a non-kohen.
"Ushe'ar kol hatavshil" - the Bartenura explains that the Mishnah is referring to items other than onions, such as garlic and the like. It is worth noting that the law would be the same if, instead of the onion falling into lentils, it fell into another food, such as mashed potatoes; but we are focusing here on onions for simplicity, following the plain sense of the Bartenura. With all other species, whether whole or cut, it makes no difference: if garlic fell into the lentils, one cannot simply assume that all is in order, but rather "benosen ta'am" - it must be determined by tasting whether taste was transferred or not. If it was, the lentils are forbidden; if not, they remain permitted. That is the law and that is the Mishnah.
Rabbi Yehudah's view regarding tzichanah:
Rabbi Yehudah disagrees and permits in the case of tzichanah. "Tzichanah" is a fish paste, something like the familiar anchovy spread, or any small fish that has been mashed. These foods have a foul odor, and at times one looks for a way to remove some of the bad smell. Rabbi Yehudah therefore permits: if an onion of Terumah was placed into the fish paste, even when it is cut, the mixture is permitted, "she'eino ela litol es zuhamo" - since the entire purpose of putting the onion there is only to lessen the foul odor of the fish paste. So it is according to the plain sense of the words, and the halachah does not follow him.
However, understanding his position is not simple at all, since it implies that the fish become forbidden only because there was an intention to impart to them the taste of the forbidden item, the onion or garlic and the like. Yet ordinarily this is not the case: in mixtures of forbidden and permitted - such as milk that fell into the cholent, or pork brine that dripped into a permitted cholent - we are not concerned at all and we do not ask whether there was an intention to add the forbidden item for the sake of taste. Intention is not the determining factor in mixtures of this kind, and therefore the matter is puzzling, and the commentators discussed how to resolve it.
One solution, which we will adopt here for the sake of simplicity and which also serves as an introduction to the next Mishnah: the onion does indeed remove some of the fish paste's foul smell, but the taste it imparts detracts from its quality. The bad odor may be gone, yet the taste itself is not improved but impaired. This is "nosein taam lifgam" - taste was in fact imparted, but the taste the onion gave to the fish paste damages it, detracts from it and spoils it. And it is a rule that whenever the taste actually imparted spoils the permitted portion, we rule leniently, and this is always so. Accordingly, in Rabbi Yehudah's view the onion does not render the fish forbidden.
In summary: In this Mishnah we learned the principle of "taam ke'ikar" in a mixture of Terumah and chullin, the distinction between a substance mixed with its own kind, which is measured by one part in a hundred, and a substance mixed with a different kind, which is measured by whether it imparts taste, and the method of clarifying the matter by tasting - through a non-Jewish cook in the case of forbidden foods, and through a trusted kohen in mixtures involving Terumah. We noted the exception in the Mishnah: a whole onion that fell into cooked lentils that had cooled, where no taste is transferred; and Rabbi Yehudah's position permitting fish paste because the onion "is there only to remove the foul odor," which is not the accepted halachah. The halachah follows the first opinion: in all other cases we must be concerned about the imparting of taste and clarify whether taste passed from the forbidden food into the permitted food, and this is the practical halachah in all matters of kashrus of this kind.
In the next Mishnah we will expand on the principle of "nosein taam lifgam" and its parameters.